| >but what we have now seems fairly optimal. Based on what? The 40 hour work week is entirely artificial and came around at a time when people had shorter commutes and could afford to feed, cloth and educate a family on a single income. Now people are churning out 40 hours a week, mostly in dual income homes, and a vast amount of people are struggling to put food on the table, clothes on themselves and their kids and a roof over their heads even here in the developed West. What is optimal about it is that we've all been coerced to do the same amount of hours, give or take, and therefore your competition will be putting in the same amount of hours, give or take. Meanwhile people are taking far longer to get to their place of work, often sacrificing lunches or eating in isolation, and then dragging themselves home to do the basic chores required of keeping a home for themselves. Add in kids and most are exhausted. So what, except for the benefit of business owners, is optimal about this situation? I'm no socialist looking for a handout here, but as times changes and the circumstances with them, society should change and adapt with it and not cling to relics of a by-gone era that were created to optimize life in a time we can barely relate to now. |